Chapter 2.02

Come . . .

The unsettling resonant voice, as it turned out, belonged to a . . . roughly man-shaped figure with his back turned over a long, shelf-like table. The size and shape of the room was hard to make out, as the only light came through a slitted crack high above.

“Um, are you this Watcher?” Solis asked, after being made to wait for a few seconds.

The figure stopped moving, but did not turn. He could swear the wide branches stemming from its head were some kind of antlers, but it must have been a hat, an ornament. . . . Again, the deep voice boomed out, this time crisply audible and less resonant: “The latest trio arrives. And what brings you here?”

“We’re, um . . . seeking a way upward,” Telsan stammered. “We won the festival games of Megeth.”

“Bah! But why are you here? What have you heard about the Earth that is appealing? I desire three answers, not one.”

“It was my idea,” Solis admitted. “I always wanted to see the Earth for myself, ever since I was little. The Magnates hid many things from us. My companions—”

“Can speak for themselves. That is your answer.”

Phoenix cleared her throat, seeing that it waited for her. “My mother was an outcast. Our family all but shunned us. I have no father. I . . . wanted to be free. To get away from them all . . .” Even Mother, it seemed she wanted to say but could not bring herself to. Solis did not blame her, and the voice did not press.

“I’m from the Ornis tribe,” but Telsan said last of all. “I’m doing it partly for Solis and partly to prove to myself and others that I can.”

“Can . . . ascend the Earth and attain enlightenment?” the voice demanded, its owner still not turning around.

“Yes,” said the birdman uncertainly.

By now, Solis strongly suspected that the voice did not belong to the antlered figure at all—and this seemed to be confirmed as it finally turned around, as the human figure—wingless and male—was indeed topped by a deer head, neck blending seamlessly into the very normal shoulders. When it spoke, however, his mouth moved in sync with his words: “What makes you think I am the Watcher? Do I appear as one?”

“I . . . ah . . .” Solis fumbled with words until a hand snatched him by the shoulder, and he gasped reflexively. The man was right next to him, antlered animal head inches from his own wide eyes.

“It would seem that I am,” he said far more softly. With that, the man gave an almost careless flick of his hand, sending Solis reeling. The Tapiq boy hit the stone floor hard and rolled, tucking his wings to damage them as little as possible, and looked up to see the man confronting Phoenix, a finger beneath her chin. “And what of you, flamebearing woman? What does a Watcher look like to you? A passive observer? An active guardian? Perhaps a babysitter, a reject sent to observe the aimless toil of lesser beings and take pleasure in their ignorance? Sound familiar?”

Solis sat up, then rose to his feet, teeth gritted, uncertain whether he should act in his friend’s defense. After a quick squeeze of his grip that elicited a sharp cry from the girl, the Watcher let go her jaw and moved to Telsan. “What of you, youth of the Bird Tribe? It seems you and I have the most in common here, for I too came from a mixed line. Do you possess what it takes to progress? To compete with the greatest? Do you have the strength of will to persist beyond all hardships? I am bored, and more than a little jaded by the Lords above, but there are those far worse than I. It would be remiss of me to let you through without at least a little taste . . .”

Telsan backed slowly away from the anthropomorph, eyes wide.

“What are you?” Solis cut in, plowing on before the Watcher could shut him down. “Are you like the Magnates? I hate them . . . more than anything in the world.”

The deer man looked at him almost quizzically. Then he moved in a flash, knocking him to the ground with a blazing fast backhand. “You do not speak unless I ask it. But I will answer, because I rather like you, child of the nether sky. I will say . . . yes, I am a bit like them. But also not. I do not come from the Sky Below, as perhaps you’ve guessed. And now—yes, rise to your feet; I won’t strike you for the next minute—I will do the three of you a favor and explain a bit about this first and preparatory Stratum. But first, a change of scenery.”

The man waved a hand to the side, and the wall burst outward with a deafening roar. crushed stone toppled forth, letting in more light. Solis saw now that the floor inside their little cave was of a deep green, though it was not covered in moss. The watcher flicked his hand lazily, and the collected rock shards threw themselves outward, revealing a path through stone some four feet in thickness. “Come,” he said in that impossibly deep voice, and headed out into the light.

Solis coughed on the dust as he walked, sharing a shaky glance with Phoenix as they trudged after the Watcher. The light illuminated a small field of moss-covered stone set with the stumps of pillars five feet thick, reaching around waist height. Yet he almost could have sworn they were tree stumps, given the concentric rings that showed over the surface of each. Small creatures like grasshoppers but with more wings fluttered away from the sides of the pillars, some landing on the mossy ground and others vanishing.

The deer Watcher gestured forward at the orchard of pillar-stumps, which spread forth and dropped off on both sides, apparently at a dramatic cliff. Yet the cliff curved and wobbled in form, becoming small peninsulas and curving slowly to the left, out of sight. In a few places, real pillars reached up like walls and became visual dividers, though the same field seemed to spread on either side. In this way, the geometry of the area was entirely obscured. They could have been at the start of a complex honeycomb, or the largest part of a strange field that only spread a bit further.

“Behold, the First Stratum,” said the Watcher, still looking forward. “This is the first testing grounds, but more importantly, a place of teaching. You will find, as you progress through this course, that it is as a funnel, guiding you, teaching you even without your knowledge of it. I give you this advance knowledge as a leg up, so use it wisely, for not all parties will necessarily receive such a benefit.”

“Wait . . . all parties?” Phoenix asked, speaking for them all.

“Indeed. From each part of the sky comes a contestant or contestants, every year. Sometimes a better batch, other times a bit more . . . watery. This year, by all reports, we have a good clutch, so it should be an interesting run up to the top.”

So these Watchers . . . keep track of us? Solis wondered. How does news travel between Strata? Do they follow us as we progress? The thought stirred uncomfortably within him. The Watcher seemed to be giving a few heartbeats to speak up, so Solis took it, “What do you mean by teaching? What are we learning here?”

“I suppose you will find that out, hmm? It will vary, and it will at times be painful. Let us begin now.” Face still forward, he stretched out his hands, and the room . . . stirred. The life, such as it was, in the cavity of the cave rose up, and Solis could tangibly feel its swell, as though the largely dry place had become a thriving pulsing ecosystem. The moss churned underfoot with it. He had only a partial minute to notice it, however, before, he felt himself grabbed and pulled by nothing at all. His entire weight lurched to the side and was pulled roughly onto one of the pillars.

It was not a soft landing. He let out a long, winded grunt, hearing a three-part harmony from his friends. Half-dazed, half-panicked, he lifted his neck just enough to look around, seeing nothing except the deer man walking calmly between them. Telsan was a few pillars to his left, while Phoenix was somewhere behind him.

“These pillars,” the Watcher began slowly, voice drifting eerily through the air to them, “are more than meets the eye. They are, as you can no doubt tell, severed, but once they were tall and proud like trees, growing upward, branching out, interconnecting, and making up the floor of the next Stratum. At least . . . eventually, and in theory. It needs no such help from these to stand and flourish on its own, and neither is the next domain mine, but this is. And yet . . . it was not I who cut them. It is enough to say that each is unique, containing different properties like density, depth of root—yes, they do actually grow like living things—and of course, the individual minerals making them up. This is a place of plenty, as minerals go, in that you can find nearly all of them. The Strata that comprise the Earth contain their own distinct subsets, and some travelers find themselves deprived of certain minerals upon which they rely. And no, I speak not of sodium and calcium. No, but there are greater minerals, ones the body does not need but which it craves at a primal level.

“This may hurt a bit.” The Watcher spread his hands once more, gaze turning downward, and seemed to concentrate. Then . . . to vibrate, and with him, the floor below, or at least, the pillar upon which he lay, panting shallowly. What could he possibly be—

It was then that he felt it. A sudden cry from Phoenix did nothing to preempt the terror that sprang up in his heart. He felt a trembling, then a tickle, a prickling of the hairs on his skin, and then an insatiable pull from somewhere else. In a moment, he was jerked as though by a magnet, surging through the air and colliding with one, then another pillar, on his way to a final stop. His wings did little to soften the collisions, particularly the final one, which hit directly between the shoulder blades, apparently on the edge of the stump’s top. He gave a sharp cry with the pain. Then he was pulled inexorably upward, crumpling over the lip to lie in a tangled mass on top.

The Watcher’s voice was now a bit more distant, though by an indistinct amount. “Ah, I see the female did not have far to travel. That could mean a few things. It is possible that there is something else in you that hungers for other elements. Hmm.” He paused for a short moment, then continued, “Anyway, minerals. Otherwise known as elements. This is the first sorting down by the apparent impulse of the Earth, for it is a bit random, though primarily you have been attracted to those sources which contain something your body will particularly take to.”

Footsteps drew near, and then the Watcher was brushing the stump next to him, and though clearing it of dust. He then took the nails of one hand and dragged them along the relatively smooth surface, creating a harsh and abrasive grinding noise. Then he pressed something into his hand, commanding the boy to eat. Soils did so, too afraid to rebel. It was dust and chipped fragments from . . . the stump itself, apparently. How was it soft enough to . . .

He coughed, nearly chipping a tooth on a hard chunk of bitter stone. It’s not. What is this . . . nasty, rotted flavor? Yet a bit metallic, and dusty. He kept choking and coughing, but the Watcher merely stood there menacingly, his intent clear: Eat the rock scrapings, sky boy, or else.

Then he was gone, and his ears told him of the others’ struggle to imbibe similar minerals. What was wrong with the animal-man? Choking down the last of his, he couldn’t get the thickly dusty taste out of his mouth.

“What—what is this?” Phoenix moaned over her own mouthful. “This is awful . . . sour.”

Definitely not how he’d have described it, but then . . . maybe the Watcher was right about each being different. But what was the point? Was he training them to eat rocks? Each one a different type? Then they would eventually run out of their chosen, or . . . assigned mineral . . . and be left without it. What was the point? If he was indicating that they’d get some special effects from them, then . . . well, he felt no different. He just felt like he needed to vomit rock dust. groping the stump with his hand, he felt more dust remaining on it, but was not about to try to imbibe that as well. He was not sick in the head like this deer-head.

Finally, he felt the unexplainable magnetic pull lessen and drop, leaving his body to uncurl and drape over the stone. It poked and pained him, but he didn’t care for a moment. Realizing that Professor Deer was silent for the moment, he made the great effort to lift his neck and asked, “That it? You just—needed us to eat some—”

An unseen blow knocked him from the table. This time, he scrabbled for footing on the ground, flailing with wings and arms, and made an awkward landing, jerking his gaze around to find nothing.

“Still clumsy, like a skyling,” spoke the Watcher’s voice in one ear with a low chuckle. “You’ll get your legs soon enough, kid—all six of them.”

Solis finally laid eyes on the man, flinching as he nearly came face-to-face with the antlered man. He blinked—or at least thought he must have, because the Watcher was suddenly gone. Solis rose to his full height, squeezing his shoulder blades together in a quick, grimace-inducing stretch, and looked around to see the Watcher speaking to Telsan: so softly that he couldn’t hear what was said. Telsan did not look happy, but he sat with knees tucked up on the oversized pedestal—the Watcher had not kicked him off as he had Solis—so that was good. Then he was gone again.

Approaching Phoenix menacingly.

Solis saw it in the way she tensed, the way her pose grew stiffer and more defensive, and felt dread creep into his chest even before she cried out, fighting him. But she didn’t just fight, nor did she only cry out—she thrashed madly with a howling shriek, fiery wings igniting and paling with intense heat. Solis had to squint to look at them. The Watcher held her against the ground as her flames enveloped him. And then . . . he did something strange, and apparently overcame her inferno with a spell. Soon, she only smoldered, smoke rising around her.

No. No. She can’t . . . wait. As it cleared, he saw that she was unharmed, but stilled and seemingly . . .

Powerless. Flameless.

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